All you need to know about Google’s 'right to be forgotten'

Mumbai: Although the ‘right to be forgotten’ existed as a concept in European law, the ruling marked the first time companies like Google have been asked to field such requests from the public. This thrust web companies into the uncomfortable position of making judgment calls on individual cases, balancing rights to personal privacy against the freedom of information.

Some national regulators and lawyers have said Google's approach waters down the effectiveness of the ruling given how easy it is to switch between the different versions. Till date, Google's approach has been to remove links only from European versions of its website, such as Google.de in Germany or Google.co.uk in Britain, meaning they would still appear on Google.com.

People have the right to appeal to their national data protection regulator if the search engine refuses their request. To ensure that such appeals are handled consistently, EU data protection regulators plan to draft guidelines by this autumn.

About 50 such appeals have been filed so far across Europe. Google needs to ensure that the approach is legally sound and can be defended in court

As per official reports, French residents submitted the most takedown requests, filing 17,500 with Google, said a person close to the company. Germany generated 16,500 requests, Britain 12,000 requests, Spain 8,000, 7,500 from Italy, and 5,500 from the Netherlands.

Microsoft and Yahoo have not yet said how they will handle the issue.